[5][6] Before beginning a lifelong career as a biographer, he was editor-in-chief of the twenty-volume Dictionary of American Biography and the third director of the Harvard University Press.

[7][note 1] He was raised in a poor, religious household from the Deep South and his grandfather was a Confederate veteran who served in the American Civil War.

He also took great inspiration from the economist Edgar H. Johnson, the instructor of the college's only history course, whose teaching Malone credited with leaving "an abiding impression".

[8][16] He spent several years as a teacher in small, local schools; at Andrew College, he lectured on topics including mathematics, history, and the Bible.

[17] Finding a passion for teaching, he briefly taught biblical literature as an adjunct professor[18] at Randolph-Macon Woman's College, where two of his sisters had been educated.

[16] He had found his time at the university intellectually liberating, acquiring a passion for writing and abandoning his pursuit of theology in order to study history.

He left Yale in 1917 to enlist in the U.S. Marine Corps after temporarily training as part of the Army YMCA at Camp Wheeler, becoming a Second lieutenant after graduating from Parris Island.

[26] His dissertation, "The Public Life of Thomas Cooper", was awarded the John Addison Porter Prize; it had been supervised by the historian Allen Johnson, who had also been the one to recommend the topic to him.

[29] Following the completion of his doctorate, Malone was persuaded to join the faculty of the University of Virginia by its president, Edwin Alderman, during an interview at the American Historical Association and did so that same year.

[34][note 3] Despite doubts by Allen Johnson, his former mentor at Yale, and calls for caution by other scholars, Malone resolved to write a voluminous biography on Jefferson by the fall of 1926.

[28] Malone's tenure at Virginia suddenly ended when Allen Johnson extended an offer for him to take the co-editorship[37] of the monumental[38] Dictionary of American Biography (DAB) in 1929.

[39] After reluctantly choosing to leave the University of Virginia, Malone moved with his wife to Washington, D.C.,[38] to assist Johnson with the dictionary, a choice which he called "the most painful decision I ever made.

[45] At the recommendation of Mark Antony De Wolfe Howe,[46] Malone was suggested as a possible candidate to serve as the third director of the Harvard University Press (HUP).

[47] Malone accepted—provided he be able to finish his time on the DAB—and was formally appointed both as editor-in-chief[7][48] (director)[49] on December 1, 1937, and as board chairman,[50] following a vote by the Harvard Corporation.

[61] With a stagnant audience for academic works and student enrollment waning during the war, Malone recalled his time as director to be "basically a lame-duck leader.

[63] In January 1943, Malone's salary and duties were reduced; in April, a majority of officials doubted his future leadership in a vote of no-confidence.

Following this rapid decline, Malone presented his letter of resignation on July 17, writing that "the major criteria by which my work is judged differ materially from those applied to the academic departments of the University.

"[64] The Harvard Corporation accepted his request, and, in April 1943, Malone formally resigned his position as director in order to return to Virginia and begin work on his biography of Jefferson.

[8][64] Having been relieved from his duties at Harvard, Malone dedicated his time to writing the first volume of his Jefferson biography in earnest upon returning to Virginia in 1943.

Thus 'Jefferson the Virginian' lacks the flashy, dramatic, picturesque quality which best-sellers in the [biographical] field generally have...[Although] Professor Malone makes occasional interpretations, he has tried to let the facts he has selected speak for themselves.

"[78] Those who follow trends in history and biography hear in Dumas Malone the voice of a scholar whose exacting standards our age has too little patience, one who rejects easy explanations and facile judgements.